Wondering Where Your ‘Likes’ Went? We’ll Tell You!

By Leanne GilardiApril 6, 2015

TOPICSSocial Media

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Don’t panic. It’ll all make sense.

Early in March, Facebook made some company page updates in an effort to make social statistics more meaningful.

Did you notice a slight drop in your Facebook likes these past couple of weeks? That’s because Facebook decided to delete the “likes” from both memorialized and deactivated Facebook accounts. (Hey, if those deactivated accounts are reactivated, you’ll get your like back.) Your company page shouldn’t see a drastic drop, though, so don’t be alarmed. Over at Exclusive Concepts, we saw about a 2 percent drop on our page. But it’s good to take note of the change to get a sense of how many no-value likes you had.

There was also an unexpected benefit to this; we saw an increase in our post reach in the weeks following. Perhaps targeting of audiences has improved from this change? I think it may have.

Your Instagram account may have seen a similar drop. At the end of 2014, Instagram began catching on to spammy, fake accounts (like their parent company, they became more vigilant about removing unwanted accounts). They’ve gotten much better at identifying offending accounts, so it’s likely that your social numbers will continue to be impacted by this ongoing tango.

Same goes for Twitter: there’s no real rhyme or reason for why follower counts fluctuate the way they do, but oh do they go up and down! After some digging, the most logical explanation I can find is the use of hashtags in your tweets. These will often lead to automated follower services/bots that artificially latch on to an account before being removed from Twitter a few days later.

Be on the lookout for upcoming changes in the Facebook Messenger App — Facebook’s new announcement includes a big shift for businesses. You will have the option to use their messenger app to directly communicate with your customers as a new form of customer service. (Look out for a future post on crisis communication which will tell you: don’t fight or argue with your customers! Now your customer service interactions can be made public faster than ever before!)

These changes could be huge for online retailers. Users will also have the option to link the app to their debit cards, allowing for actual transactions to be made.

Leanne brings more than five years of experience to her clients at EXCLUSIVE. With a background in public relations and communications, she has helped online retailers across multiple industries connect with their customers.